1. Technical Field
The invention pertains to wireless communications and, more particularly to optimally sending video packets over a wireless link under varying bandwidth based on video quality demands.
2. Description of the Related Art
A universal mobile telecommunications network 10 of FIG. 1 includes a wireless link between mobile devices 11 and a cellular radio tower 12 indicated as node B. A home location register HLR 18 is accessible by a mobile switching center MSC 17 tied to a public switched telephone network PTSN 19. A landline communication network includes a Radio Network Controller RNC 13 tied to a Serving General Packet Radio Service Support Node, SGSN 14. The node SGSN 14 is tied to the Mobile Switching Center 17 and a Gateway General Packet Radio Service Support node, GGSN 15. An Internet/packet data network PDN 16 is linked to the gateway node, GGSN 15.
Referring to the diagram 20 of FIG. 2, a number of uncompressed video frames 22, indicated as f1, f2, f3, f4 and f5, are shown that have a fixed size in number of bytes. After video compression by a video encoder 21, the number of bytes required to code each video frame is variable to achieve the constant video quality across video frames, which results in a variable bit rate VBR 23 stream of packets p1, p2, p3, p4 and p5 with variable length of compressed video.
Delivering a variable bit rate (VBR) compressed video stream over a wireless network or link requires network resource allocation. Delivering a variable bit rate (VBR) video stream with variable frame sizes over a wireless mobile network requires appropriate network resource allocation for each frame to maximize the network efficiency, minimize the delivery jitter (frame arrival variation), and smooth the traffic flow over the wireless network.
Current video delivery application maps a video stream into one quality of service QoS queue without any adaptation. For a variable bit rate VBR video stream, a fixed quality of service QoS queue for all frames with variable sizes is not an optimal solution.
Accordingly, there is a need to optimally send variable length video packets over a wireless link.